I’m curious – no signature on the splash page (for “The Swallowing” in MAD #525).
1)¬¨‚Ä†Intentional? I’m assuming it is since you’ve got the “Richmond Area Directory” included.
2)¬¨‚Ä†Is this a first? (a splash page without your usual stylish signature)

Nope. Not intentional… I just forgot. I forget to do that a lot. I get wrapped up in the job, and just plain forget.

Sadly, no.

Thanks to some OCD issues I had to go back and look at how many I have actually missed signing. I only counted those that are “splash pages” or intro pages to an article where a signature seems appropriate. I never (or seldom) sign features which are only made up of spot illustrations, or as single images meant to be riffs on some other thing (like fake DVD or video game covers, posters, etc). If you were to include those this list would be much longer. That said, there are actually not as many as I thought:

Gadgets to Really Make Home Theater Like Going to the Movies!- MAD #399 (My first #$@#% printed MAD piece and I DIDN’T SIGN IT! D’OH!)

MAD Dumbest Thing #1- Election 2000- MAD #401

Traffeccch!- MAD #405

Behind Empty Lines- MAD #415

Fools of Rock- MAD #438

The Burning Mad Show- MAD #447

Dump My Ride- MAD #456

MAD’s Inside Scoop on This Year’s Stupidest Holiday Movies- MAD #459

Rejected Characters from CARS- MAD #467

Stuporman Returns- MAD #468

MAD Exposes Who’s Thinking What at the Obama Inauguration- MAD #498

The Big Bomb Theory- MAD #503

Green Lunkhead- MAD #510

Parks and Regurgitation- MAD #511

Bigg and Bulky- MAD #514

The Hunger Pains- MAD #515

The Dork Knight Reprises- MAD #519

The Slobbit- MAD #522

The Swallowing- MAD #525

I only did a quick look back (I have tear sheets collected in books from all my MAD work.. pathetic, I know) and there may be a few in there where the signature is hard to find… but I think this is pretty accurate. I see I’ve forgotten a lot in the last 25 issues.

So, my not signing this parody of “The Following” is not all that unusual. However, there is something unusual about the work I did on this parody that has never been seen before on any of my MAD jobs. Anybody care to guess what that was? The answer and explanation tomorrow (I know… big deal).